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Warlock builds
Warlock talent builds are many and varied. Each tree is worth spec'ing up to 41 points in, and many Destruction builds invest more than 41 points in their primary tree. Regardless of which path a player eventually chooses, it is sure to be littered with many tough choices. To play around with the build talents and maximize DPS for raids and instances, be sure to check out this Warlock DPS Calculator ;See also: * Warlock Talents 201 * Warlock Builds pre-TBC Leveling to 60 Before level 60, one must consider whether or not a full-Demonology build is viable, since level 50 is the earliest one can obtain a Felguard. With the availability of respeccing, a warlock might consider taking a hybrid destruction/affliction build with access to Shadowburn and instant-cast Corruption, both of which provide more immediate benefits. Full Demonology builds only start to show comparable benefits around level 40. Around level 50, then, the warlock can respec to receive their Felguard. Demonology builds are used more for survival, and do not have the capability of killing mass amounts of things without drinking water or eating food. However, a warlock that goes down the affliction talent tree can use an imp(on passive) and drain life to keep at full life, then at the end of the battle gain all mana back with dark pact leaving little to no down time. It can be said that an affliction build is the way to go when leveling for several reasons. Demonology generally deals less damage, while destruction is worse due to more downtime. All one needs to effectively use an affliction build is some practice with DoT spells and Fear/Howl of Terror. The technique is to pull several mobs at once, place DoTs on all targets and then fear them. Drain Life is then used to regain health, which can be converted into mana. Affliction The DoTs Curse of Agony and Corruption are some of the most mana-effective spells available for the Warlock. That is, the amount of damage per mana is higher compared to Direct Damage spells like Shadow Bolt. The Affliction talent tree can improve on these even more. There are problems using DoTs in parties and raids. There is a risk that the mob is killed before the completion of a DoT. This is especially bad for Curse of Agony, that causes more of its damage near the end of its duration. If this happens, then mana and time will be wasted. Unstable Affliction/Shadowburn 45/5/11 Talent Calculator Link This build goes to the end of the affliction tree to get another DoT (Unstable Affliction) which does a large amount of instant damage if dispelled and silences the dispeller. It also has 11 points in Destruction to get Shadowburn and 5 points in Demonology for Demonic Embrace. Notes: *2 points in Suppression gives a 99% chance of hitting an equal level character, which is the most possible. Points from Shadow Embrace or Empowered Corruption may be moved here if combating higher level mobs/players. *Improved Howl of Terror, Contagion, and Unstable Affliction at the end of the tree make this build much more suitable for PvP. *Shadowburn and a faster Shadow Bolt give the build an extra punch. *You may want to change this build to 43/7/11 and get the improved Healthstone which is a real bonus in instances, battlegrounds and especially in arena battles. Contagion/Demonic Sacrifice (SM/DS with Contagion) 40/21/0 Talent Calculator Link This build mainly leaves out Unstable Affliction to get Demonic Sacrifice. It combines heavy DoT damage with the main benefits from the Demonology tree, including DS, which offers a lot of flexibility. In general, sacrificing the Succubus for extra damage or the Voidwalker for extra health regeneration is preferred. The major downsides of this build are the losses of the minion and of two Affliction ultimates, namely Dark Pact and Unstable Affliction. Whereas the former spell can be partly replaced by a sacrificed Felhunter or Voidwalker (at the cost of another sacrifice), the latter has no viable substitution (neither as an additional DoT nor as a powerful weapon against dispelling classes). Dark Pact/Ruin (SM/Ruin with DP) 40/0/21 Talent Calculator Link This build enhances the SM/Ruin-build with Affliction talents, mainly to improve Shadow Bolt's damage potential and DoTs. It is a very potent instance/raiding spec until later in the game when the duration of boss fights exceeds 1-2 minutes. Then, Unstable Affliction clearly outnumbers Ruin. Ultimately at T5/6 gear level, 0/21/40 is the most devastating spec. The build offers excellent survivability paired with high damage output. In contrast to heavy destruction builds mana is rarely an issue. While there are many different tastes of SM/Ruin w/ DP the following elaborates a specific build in more detail trying to make the choice of talents comprehensible. Focus will be on the affliction talents as choice of talents in the destruction tree is comparatively straight forward. Shadowburn adds instant burst damage, thus addressing the greatest downside of affliction builds. Talents * Suppression reduces resists which translates into more damage. * Improved Corruption, Empowered Corruption (with +dmg gear), and Malediction make Corruption the most important DoT of the build. * Improved Lifetap means more mana per global cooldown which means more damage. * Improved Drain Soul mitigates threat by 10% which means more damage. The mana return is a nice side-effect. * Soul Siphon is a sensible tier breaker as it proves useful when health is an issue. * Improved Curse of Weakness receives 0 points as Curse of Shadow should be used in almost all situations. * Fel Concentration receives 0 points as drain tanking is not the objective here. * Improved Curse of Agony receives 0 points as either Curse of Shadow or Elements is used in almost all fights. * Amplify Curse is a good investment to boost damage for the occasions when Curse of Agony is used. Both should be combined with a castsequence macro. * Nighfall increases your SB ouput. Together with Malediction, Improved Shadowbolt, Devestation and Ruin it translates to more damage. * Siphon Life adds to survivabilty and effectively increases the mana pool in longer boss fights. However, it should not be part of the standard cast rotation. * Curse of Exhaustion proves helpful in end game raid content but only one warlock should skill it. * Shadow Embrace counts as Affliction effect for Soul Siphon which is the main reasoning to put a point in it. * Malediction increases total raid/ group damage. * Improved Howl of Terror receives 0 points as the build focuses on damage. More Discussion Dark Pact/Emberstorm (Natural Evolution of SM/Ruin) 31/0/30 This SM/Ruin-build focuses on the Destruction tree to give the Warlock more flexibility with the two schools. Talent Calculator Link Dark Pact/Mana Feed (Evolution of SM/Sacrifice) 33/28/0 Affliction/Demonology build 42/19/0 Talent Calculator Link This build combines mana-efficiency with DPS. Improved Curse of Weakness, Improved Curse of Agony, and Malediction were all taken so any of the curses you are in charge of are all more effective. Improved Drain Soul was taken for the threat reduction effect. Improved Imp was taken for the 30% increase to Blood Pact. When you are raiding, an Imp should be used in passive for both Blood Pact and as a mana-battery for Dark Pact. Unstable Affliction/Destructive Reach raid build 44/0/17 This build a key warlock raiding build, and provides many important raid synergy effects, while providing decent damage to new warlocks. * Talent Calculator Link (if spell hit is good) * Talent Calculator Link (with Suppression) Points should be moved from Fel Concentration and Improved Curse of Agony to Suppression to bridge the spell hit rating cap, if one should exist. Malediction provides much-needed damage boost to Curse of Shadow and Curse of the Elements. Shadow Embrace reduces damage done by the debuffed target and helps reduce the healing required on the main tank. Curse of Exhaustion helps the warlock kite which is useful in certain situations, such as Vashj's Coilfang Strider adds. SM/Sacrifice 30/21/10 This is a DPS raiding build that is a cross between heavy affliction and 0/21/40 sac destro. It is generally NOT recommended for raid DPS because 42/0/19 and 0/21/40 are both generally considered superior in raid environments, but is here for completeness because it is an often discussed build. Talent Calculator Link Because your demon is sacrificed, progression through affliction stops before Dark Pact but 5/5 Shadow Mastery is obtained for DPS. Improved Shadow Bolt and Bane are taken to give punch to your shadow bolts. A succubus is sacrificed for an additional +15% shadow damage. Demonic Aegis is also picked up for some extra spell damage from Fel Armor. As with other sacrifice builds, talents can be shuffled around the demonology tree between master summoner, healthstones, improved imp, voidwalker and succubus and others as desired. The main criticisms are that while Demonic Embrace is taken, your demon is sacrificed so you do not benefit from Blood Pact which is offered by an affliction build so survivability is not significantly increased. It lacks the raid utility of an affliction build by not having a demon available and not having Malediction or enough affliction points spare for Shadows Embrace. It relies on shadow bolts as its main source of DPS, but lacks the big improvements of Aftermath and Ruin offered by 0/21/40. Finally, the major attraction in the affliction tree, which is the Shadow Mastery talent, is matched and often surpassed by the Shadow and Flame talent taken by 0/21/40 at the kind of gear level where most warlocks start looking to move away from affliction raid support. Demonology The Demonology talent tree and the use of summoned demons are what mainly distinguishes a Warlock from a Mage. Felguard Raiding Build (7/43/11) Talent Calculator Link Pros: * A viable PvP spec * Soul Link provides survivability * Moderately DPS * Decent grindability * Different pets give flexibility ** Felguard can offtank and DPS - the lack of a taunt that affects more mobs than one is filled with high DPS, thus gaining more aggro as an offtank ** Succubus gives additional CC-ability, increases damage, and can cut mob damage down by decreasing attack speed by 10% with Soothing Kiss. ** Felhunter gives anti-caster ability and survivability in resistance fights ** Imp buffs party HP, minor fire resistance, and a damage shield Cons: * Requires alot of micro-management * Felguard is vulnerable to area attacks * Less synergy to a raid than an affliction-spec Having a Felguard raiding spec require you to keep track on your Felguard's positioning, abilities and health. One of the major drawbacks for this spec is keeping your Felguard healed with Health Funnel, if the minion is used as an off-tank. Using the provides much-needed survivability for your Felguard, and the two-piece bonus of Corruptor Raiment greatly helps reduce the active healing the he requires. Having a shadow priest with Vampiric Embrace in the group also provides passive healing. Buffs on your Felguard that increase his stamina and intellect, providing you with 15% per point spelldamage increase as per Demonic Knowledge. Therefore it is doubly important that he does not die, as he will lose all buffs on death. It is possible re-summon him, at full or almost-full health and perserve the buffs. The Fel Domination and Master Summoner talents reduce this downtime to half a second, aswell as one additional second of Global Cooldown. This spec is highly effective for tanking Leotheras' Demon Form, Grand Astromancer Capernian in Kael'Thas' fight, blue beam tanking at netherspite, and several other mobs with spell-based attacks. Felguard Pure-Raiding Build (0/44/17) Talent Calculator Link This build is to maximize damage in 25 man raids but requires a lot of micro-management and understanding of all fights, even trash pulls. Talents that appear in the above spec but were not taken for this spec, like Mana Feed and Shadowburn, were not taken because they aren't needed for 25 man content since Cleave and Anguish will be off most of the time and Shadowburn is generally only for 0/21/40 raid builds. Since Shadow Bolt are the main source of damage, Devastation is crucial for the increased crit and Destructive Reach helps from hitting the Threat Cap too soon. This spec has high gear requirements and using it without at least 2 pieces of Tier 5 is generally inadvisable, the is also highly recommended to help minimize damage to your Felguard from AoE effects from bosses like Void Reaver. Felguard Leveling Build (7/41/11) This spec is focused on three things: * Survivability * Low to Zero Downtime * High DPS Talent Calculator Link The general strategy is to send the Felguard in, and while you have mana, Shadowbolt or Immolate. Once you are out of mana, Life Tap to full and Drain Life. Grinding mobs becomes a cycle of fast kills followed by much slower kills. Corruption and CoA are generally avoided when soloing with this build because a lot of the DoT ticks will never have a chance to hit the already dead mobs. If you find that you're wasting mana with Corruption, you may want to put the first 5 points in the Affliction tree towards Suppression instead. Demonic Tactics / Ruin (MD/Ruin with DT) (0/40/21) This spec would provide the basic beneficial survivability and stat boosting abilities from demonology, while getting bonus crit damage from destruction. Talent Calculator Link The ideas behind this talent specification are: * The Demonology talents give a lot of +dmg, especially with a summoned pet. It is not unknown to use an Imp on passive which will lessen threat, but a Succubus will add additional 10% damage instead (matching Shadow Mastery in the Affliction tree), as well as acting like a DoT. * Demonic sacrifice can be used for cases where there is no use of a pet (especially some boss fights and fights with AoE problems). * Soul Link is as always nice to have in PvP, but also because of the additional 5% +dmg. * The main damage in this build is based on only doing CoA (in case the mob lives long enough), and then spamming Shadow Bolts. This will take good advantage of the improvements in the Destruction tree. * While +crit is of less interest for affliction builds, this build will benefit highly from it. * An alternative build is to spend 5 points on improving the Succubus (Improved Succubus and Improved Lash of Pain) instead of 5% increased crit chance (Demonic Tactics). While this will lessen the Shadowbolts a little, it will allow for a more deadly Succubus with improved seduction. Can be quite useful in many instances. * Talents in healthstones are benefitial for raids, as a player can hold up to 3 of the varying amount they heal (2080/2288/2496) for the different amount of talents you put in it (0/1/2). Very useful if other warlocks in your guild are lacking talents in this. Voidwalker/Felguard (20/41/0) *Phase One: Voidwalker *Final Build: Felguard These builds are for demonology/affliction based PvE leveling and soloing. The combination of a buffed pet and Improved Drain Soul greatly reduces the chance to pull aggro from your minion. Drain Life becomes viable for damage and health/mana regen at lvl 30, and using your minion as a strong tank leaves plenty of life left to tap. Lay down DoTs, Drain Life or Shadow Bolt spam (mana efficiency vs. DPS) till mob is almost dead, then Drain Soul (rank 1) at last second for 15% mana regen. Life Tap between fights. This maintains mana with high survivability and good DPS. As a bonus, you will have plenty of souls and enough mana for the occasional shadow bolt spam. A re-spec is recommended while leveling because Voidwalker and Felguard benefit from a few different talents. Since the demonology tree is very defense-heavy until the upper tiers (soul link, demonic knowledge, master demonologist), affliction talents are used before the Felguard becomes available. Start with Improved Corruption and Improved Drain Soul. Second, fill demonology down to Improved Voidwalker. Finally, increase your DPS with the affliction tree until you reach level 50-55, when you can re-spec to the Felguard based build. This will noticeably increase your DPS, while building up your mana/life regen on the road to 70. Misc Builds: (instant dots and the area effect corruption nukes hit 2500+ each target) *Heavy Damage Build PVP *Alternative Heavy Damage PVP *Very Fun Crit-O-Matic PVP SL/SL (Soul Link and Siphon Life) (21+/31+/0) Talent Calculator Link This build combines the survivability provided by the Demonology tree and the health regaining abilities from the Affliction tree. It particularly shines in solo and small-scale PvP, where it normally allows to "tank" enemies by constantly draining their life. The negative aspects are its susceptibility to dispel effects and the relatively low damage output, compared to pure damage builds. Notes: *Due to the heavy use of Drain Life and Corruption, Nightfall can be a powerful addition. *It was originally stated that Shadow Embrace no longer benefits Soul Siphon. However, it has been experimentally confirmed that it does. The text in the notes was referring to other effects that would process on a debuff or other such effects. Drain Tank/Felguard (20/41/0) Talent Calculator Link This is a good all around build, suitable for farming and 5-man instances, but it especially shines in PvP. It combines all the benefits of the Demonology tree with extra power to your Drain Life and Corruption spells. Improved Life Tap and Drain Life help reduce downtime for you, while Mana Feed helps your Felguard to regain mana at the same time. Between these and Health Funnel, it is very easy to keep both you and your pet up and running at all times, especially if you're farming for extended periods. If mobs or your opponents attack you instead of your Felguard, you can drain tank them quite well, although in PvP Fear then Drain Life, Shadow Bolt, or Incinerate (in addition to Corruption, Immolate, and a curse of course) is preferable. The downside of this build is that your affliction spells don't provide as much DPS as in most affliction-heavy builds. However, the Felguard is incredibly useful in just about any situation and provides great DPS. Moreover, the affliction talents geared towards drain tanking, together with the damage mitigation benefits of the Demonology tree, offer incredible survivability. Also, if you have enough health and aren't under attack, spamming Shadow Bolt or Incinerate (better than Shadow Bolt if Immolate is active) instead of using Drain Life can improve your DPS significantly as long as you have decent +Spell Damage gear. Destruction Firelock PvP Build (7/7/47) This is an extremely high damage PvP spec. Talent Calculator Link This build empowers the Warlock's direct damage abilities (of which most are Fire-based, which gives the spec its name). It provides the Warlock with good burst damage (mainly due to Conflagrate, Shadowburn, and Backlash) and high crits (Ruin). It is very good against other Fire- or Shadow-based classes (especially Fire Mages, Shadow Priests and other Warlocks). Soul Leech allows the Warlock to heal themselves. The build also includes talents from other trees which are often considered necessary, namely Demonic Embrace, Improved Corruption, and Improved Life Tap. There are weaknesses in the build however. Destruction relies on taking down an enemy quickly. It offers little in terms of extra stamina or other aids to survivability. It is weaker against melee classes because melee classes have a greater chance of interrupting spell casting. Rogues are particularly troublesome to a Firelock. The PvP specific talents in the tree are considered weaker than those in the other warlock trees. DS/S&F (0/21/40) This is a heavy damage raid spec. *Fire Spec *Shadow Spec Depending on the members of your raid you may want to make your build either shadow or fire. If you raid with a lot of fire Mages(Improved Scorch) then you may want to use the Fire DS/S&F raid spec, but if you raid with shadow priests(Shadow Weaving) then you may want to use the Shadow DS/S&F raiding build. The fire build should sacrifice an Imp for bonus fire damage, while the shadow build should sacrifice a succubus for bonus shadow damage. The spec excels at raiding, whereas it is not particularly viable in PvP and solo PvE, especially due to its huge mana consumption. Variations: *Soul Leech is a powerful talent in a raid environment, allowing the warlock to keep their mana and health relatively high. One option is to take it instead of Backlash for either build. *Improved Succubus gives extra time on Seduce for pulls where the extra CC offsets the damage lost by not sacrificing her. These points can be taken from Improved Healthstones or Master Summoner. *Improved Imp can add utility to the warlock in a group or raid environment. A dead warlock with a dead tank does no DPS, so even with the high cost of not sacrificing this can be worth it. These points can be taken from Improved Healthstones or Master Summoner. *Pyroclasm is an alternative place to put the single point in destruction that the shadow build places in Improved Immolate to add a low chance stun when AOEing. Note that this requires the warlock to use the Fire element for which they're not specialised, and to use Rain of Fire or Hellfire instead of the generally superior Seed of Corruption. Alternative PvP Spec Shadow or Fire: This is a hotly debated subject among end-game raiding warlocks. The damage done by the two specs is very similar, with fire often producing marginally higher personal DPS, however, the shadow warlock's Improved Shadow Bolt is a powerful raid buff that boosts shadow priest and other shadow-based warlocks' damage considerably. The fire spec has no corresponding buff for fire mages and warlocks. Hence raid composition has a great effect on which spec is best for a given situation. Soloing: Sacrificing a Voidwalker or Felhunter for health or mana regen is often suggested for solo grinding with this spec to offset its high mana consumption. The ability to summon a demon in 0.5 seconds with Fel Domination means that before engaging a tough enemy a voidwalker can be summoned, sacrificed for a strong personal shield, and then another pet summoned and sacrificed for the DPS buff. Heavy Destruction (Heavy Destruction 2.0.1) (--/--/41+) This spec has many of the benefits that a 0/21/40 spec has, but lacking in solid damage output. The only major difference is Shadowfury, which could be very useful in certain situations where aoe is necessary, and in pvp. If you are commiting this many talents into this build, its hard to justify putting the rest of the talents in affliction, as corruption will not be used very often, except on longer fights, trash mobs will go down too fast to make it practical without your damage focused on it like an affliction lock would, and the only reason would be improved Life Tap (although very nice to have). And also you will lack the talents to gain anything useful from Demonology, although healthstones are benefitial to everyone (and a player can have up to 3 healthstones in their inventory)and bonus stamina,health, mana, and the talents in Demonic Aegis are well worth getting. Blazing Fury (7/13/41) Talent Calculator Link This build is similar to DS/S&F above but without Demonic Sacrifice. The basic idea is to keep up Curse of Elements, cast an Immolate, two-three Incinerate and blow up the Immolate with Conflagrate. In particular not requiring the sacrifice of your pet allows you to use Blood Pact, which is very useful while grouping. Instant Corruption and Improved Life Tap are more useful than the talents beyond 13 points in Demonology. This is a very high damage group build which offers a very good alternative to a heavy Affliction spec. This is a very good spec for both PVE and PVP. If you are looking for a change from spamming Shadowbolt this spec might be just for you. Nightfall / Shadowfury (NF/Conf with Shadowfury) (18/0/43) Talent Calculator Link This build is probably more effective for PvP, because of the shadowfury. However, it could also work in raids or groups because it allows for lot of instant (burst) damage. In addition, when nightfall activates, you get an instant cast for shadow bolt, and when you are in melee combat backlash produces the same effect. This build requires you to have dots applied at all times to produce the maximum number of instant-cast shadow bolts. Shadow Conflagrate (7/0/44) Talent Calculator Link This build is a good balanced PvP and PvE build. It can deal great amount of damage in little time. It also has a variety of talents that help a lot in PvP such as nether protection which will make you defeat shadow priests/other warlocks without it/fire mages 70% of the time with a 30% chance to become immune to most of their spells. Intensity gives a 70% chance to resist interruption in any destruction spell which makes you able to shoot shadowbolts while a warrior/rogue is beating on you. With backlash and devastation you got a total of +8% crit chance with spells. In raiding PvE the DPS is very good. It is comparable with SM/ruin and other older builds because shadow and flame adds a 20% more of spell damage to your shadow bolts which makes up for the loss of 10% damage in shadow with SM or 15% with succubus sacrificed. Improved life tap lets you have better mana efficiency in raids.instant corruption is great for spamming in PvP. Soul leech is more friendly in a PvE environment but still useful sometimes in PvP because it has a good list of spells that have a pretty big chance to heal you(30%). Shadowfury is a great spell to play with in PvP it is an AoE stun doing around 500ish damage with the ability to crit(The only other warlock AoE with this ability is Seed of Corruption). Shadowfury doesn't prove that great in PvE but it isn't bad if you consider it as a shadowburn with no shard cost and a stun. This build is perfectly balanced between PvP/PvE(raiding) Also, you may put the remaining 10 points into Affliction to get Nightfall. This will make you have 2 chances for an instant shadowbolt. Talent Calculator Link with Nightfall PvP Only - Shadow (28/0/33) This build is intended entirely for PvP, no thought is given to PvE applications, and uses Shadow damage exclusively with Shadowbolt as the main DD spell. Talent Calculator Link Includes: -Improved Shadow Bolt (Procs an effect to increase next SB damage) -Bane (Reduces casting time for SB) -Ruin (Increases SB critical strike damage) -Devastation (Increases SB critical strike chance) -Backlash (Instant cast SB chance upon getting struck) -Nightfall (Instant cast SB chance upon Corruption or Dain Life tick) -Shadow Mastery (Increased damage for all spells of this build) Combine this with: -Improved Corruption (Instant cast Corruption for more Nightfall procs) -Soul Siphon (For drain tanking and Nightfall procs) -Fel Concentration (Less wasted ticks from Drain Life) -Empowered Corruption (Corruption does more damage) -Siphon Life (req'd for Shadow Mastery and also increases Soul Siphon effect) -Shadow Embrace (Increases Soul Siphon effect) -Shadowburn (Benefits from Shadow Mastery and adds another instant cast DD) In addition to quicker-casting Shadowbolts, this build offers the talents for instant-cast shadowbolts. Also includes increases healing from both Siphon Life and Drain Life. Throw on Curse of Shadow, Corruption, and start Drain Life. The two DoTs benefit from many talents, including Shadow Mastery, and do good damage. The Curse benefits PvP teammates. If an enemy attacks backlash can proc, or alternatively Nightfall could proc from Drain Life or Corruption. There is an element of luck in this talent in that it includes Nightfall and Backlash. An argument for this arrangement is that (a) If you're not getting attacked then you are free to Drain Life to proc Nightfall or even cast Shadowbolt. (b) Warlocks have no nice instant cast DDs, which are very important due to interrupt when getting attacked. Therefore between Nightfall and Backlash you have a good chance of getting an instant cast DD with this build that you would not get otherwise. This build does only one damage type, shadow, so is weak against any player with a lot of shadow resistance. Therefore some spell penetration from gear is recommended. PvP Only - Fire (20/0/41) This build is intended entirely for PvP, and uses Fire damage almost exclusively. Talent Calculator Link This build is similar to the Shadow build above, but uses a few more instant cast DD spells. Incinerate, Immolate, Conflagrate, Shadowburn, Shadowfury, as well as Shadowbolt, from Nightfall and Backlash procs give this build the best possible burst damage a warlock can achieve. The first three of which benefit from Emberstorm are expected to constitute the majority of the offensive spell makeup. As with the previous build, this build can be weak against resistant players, so some spell penetration from gear is recommended. Category:Guides Category:Warlocks Category:Talents